Isaiah Rashad

**Jesse Thorn** (0:00)
Hey Bullseye listeners, it's Jesse. I'm so excited that Bullseye and I are going to be part of the Friend of the Fest Film Festival that American Cinematheque here in Los Angeles is putting on. On August 21st, there is going to be a 35 millimeter screening film projection, real film projection of my favorite film, A Thousand Clowns. It's gonna be Friday, August 21st, in the afternoon at the Los Feliz III in Los Feliz in Los Angeles. I'm gonna introduce the film and we can talk about it a little bit, say hi, and then watch one of the great films of the 1960s, one of the great films of the pre-counterculture counterculture, one of the best movies, probably the best movie ever made about comedy and one of the great comedies ever made. I really love the movie. If you haven't seen it, I hope you will come and see it with me. You can find that information at maximumfund.org/events.
It's Bullseye. I'm Jesse Thorn. Isaiah Rashad, as you're about to hear in the interview with him that you're about to hear, wants to be a rap star. And to some extent, he already is one. He's signed to Top Dog Entertainment. He's buddies with Kendrick Lamar and SZA. And wanting to be a rap star isn't super unusual in hip hop. Rap can be competitive. To most emcees, the idea of playing an arena of 25,000 fans who rap along with every hook and every verse on every anthemic party track in your discography is intoxicating. But here's the rub when it comes to Isaiah Rashad. He doesn't make big anthemic party tracks. He doesn't really make party music at all. Exactly. Take Free Lunch, one of his first singles. Can you play it at a party? I mean, a cookout, certainly. Maybe not the club. Is it good?
Can you be the judge?
Isaiah Rashad's music is beguiling. Sometimes the rhymes are abstract, fragmented, others deeply intimate and confessional. He is one of my favorite rappers in the world.
Isaiah Rashad's newest album is called It's Been Awful. It dropped in the late spring. And to some extent, he is not exaggerating. The world is a tough place. It's even tougher for a rapper in the streaming era, especially one who thinks more in albums, not singles. He's had substance abuse issues that have taken years to reign in. And a few years ago in 2022, hackers leaked two sex tapes of Rashad with other men. At times, he wasn't sure he'd come out of that ordeal alive.
But it also doesn't take long into Isaiah Rashad's newest album to tell that despite all those circumstances, he's thriving and maybe making his best work yet.
Isaiah Rashad, welcome to Bullseye. I'm so happy to have you here and have you on the show. I'm such an admirer of your work. So glad you could come in.

**Isaiah Rashad** (3:49)
Thank you.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:50)
Can I ask you, how is your health?

**Isaiah Rashad** (3:53)
I think it's pretty well. I'm working on not having so much sugar.
My doctor told me I was pre-diabetic like three months ago.

**Jesse Thorn** (4:03)
It's hard to give up sugar. Sugar tastes good.

**Isaiah Rashad** (4:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a sweet tooth. I think it's like the sodas.

**Jesse Thorn** (4:10)
Yeah.

**Isaiah Rashad** (4:11)
I don't like the energy drinks.

**Jesse Thorn** (4:13)
I don't mess with energy drinks, but I do love Nerd's gummy clusters.

**Isaiah Rashad** (4:17)
I do Celsius too much. Honestly.

**Jesse Thorn** (4:22)
Any is too much.

**Isaiah Rashad** (4:23)
Yeah, any is too much, but it's like the gym thing, like a combo of the gym and some time studio.

**Jesse Thorn** (4:32)
I get the impression that part of what you were writing about on this new record is a kind of taking responsibility for yourself.

**Isaiah Rashad** (4:47)
Yeah, absolutely, actually.

**Jesse Thorn** (4:49)
Not just for the benefit of others, but for the benefit of yourself as well. You know what I mean?

**Isaiah Rashad** (4:53)
Yeah.
It's a pretty big step, like I'd say with your motivation over the years or my motivation, a lot of times I've tried to do a cleansing of my life for other people, and then it didn't really work out. And as people have told me before, if you don't do it for yourself, then it's gonna fall apart eventually. If there's not some you in there, you know?

**Jesse Thorn** (5:21)
What led you to decide to do it for yourself?

**Isaiah Rashad** (5:27)
I don't know if there was a particular moment. Probably me just being tired, bro, of the repetition of the same cycles and getting the same results. At some point in time, I just reflected on, like you said, my health, my day-to-day routine, and the energy. Energy is a big thing for me. So the energy I was putting out and was really what I was going to get back. So readjusting that, trying to be a better person to myself, be nicer, be kinder to myself.